An older neighbor gave me two boxes of Winchester shot shells. They were paper hull,brass head (not brass colored like today), 1 1/4 ounce #2s. Had no use for #2s so using an ice pick I opened the crimp, poured out the 2s and put in 1 1/4 ounces of #6s and recrimped. They shot great and oh I love the smell from those hulls. Wanted to reload them but every rim split.

A few years ago, I picked up about 1200 or so used paper hulls that were at bid on eBay. No one wanted them. Mostly, they were/are Federal Gold Medal. Maybe 80% were usable....and I have been reloading them since. I was able to get a number of loadings out of the "better" hulls before they started to come apart - the crimp starts to shred. They have a particular smell to them that sets them apart from plastic hulls.Pete

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To be on the wire is life. The rest is waiting.Karl Wallenda

A few years ago, I picked up about 1200 or so used paper hulls that were at bid on eBay. No one wanted them. Mostly, they were/are Federal Gold Medal. Maybe 80% were usable....and I have been reloading them since. I was able to get a number of loadings out of the "better" hulls before they started to come apart - the crimp starts to shred. They have a particular smell to them that sets them apart from plastic hulls.Pete

Ha ha. A few years my buddy and I were bird hunting, and I was using up a stash of old paper hulled shells. I dropped a pheasant and tossed him the empty hull to get a whiff of that sweet smell and darned if another bird got up from between us! There we were sniffing empty shells and laughing at our foolishness!

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"The greatest enemy of truth is often not the lie- deliberate, contrived and dishonest- but the myth- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." John Kennedy

Powder and wads.I load them for Trap shooting. I use 1 1/8oz. of shot, Federal 12C1 wad or the 12S3, Federal 209A primer, 18 grains of Red Dot or Promo. Six point crimp.Pete

Might be wrong but I think that is pretty close to how Federal loads them from the factory to. Cut an older one open the other day and would have bet my last dime on it being Red Dot powder. Great smell Magnum Man

Using old paper shells are ok, but I will not reload them. if the base wad absorbs any moisture it will come loose from the bottom of the shell and can be sucked down the barrel. and the next shot leaves a nice ring on your barrel. or could split it..

I used to see a lot of that, when solid plastic shells came out that problem stopped.

The biggest problem was when people picked up empties at the shooting range.